The first steps...

"If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Rainer Maria Rilke

I feel as if I am in a state of perpetual transformation. Sometimes I feel as if I'm a clear creek bed, and a child is squatting above me and stirring up all the silt and sand at the bottom, so it's impossible to see the bottom.

However, since I've started being aware of this turbulence and trying to appreciate it for what it is, I've been able to see more clearly. But this clarity and precision is almost more startling than the unknown. Whatever feeling has come over me, it's made me more able to cope with the things I can't control. I'm trying to live in the present, instead of vying for a future that has not yet happened and wishing for a past that can't ever be repeated. Yoga and meditation help keep me grounded, as well as learning to take things a day at a time.

Basically, all of this adds up to me trying to find myself. I've decided that if I want my journey to go smoothly, I need to make sure the vehicle in which I'm journeying is in tip-top shape. This means never smoking another cigarette (a habit I'm ashamed to have picked up and proud to have put down), engaging in physical activity (yoga, running, biking, walking), allowing myself time to relax and regenerate (that means cuddled up in my bed with a book), and channeling a positive attitude (meditation to calm me). So far, the journey is going well. I can't wait to see what's next!